Goal 2: Excel and Lead

Be a leading academic institution where faculty and staff members and alumni are regional, national and global leaders in their fields.

Desired Outcomes

Desired Outcome 1: Gain a national and global reputation for academic excellence characterized by scholarly and professional contributions from faculty members who are genuine teacher-scholars.

• Creating the Division of Research and Innovation

  • In order to create the infrastructure and culture of research excellence, SJSU invested significant resources into the creation of the Division of Research and Innovation. The division focuses on research administration, developing innovation programs, connecting SJSU efforts with Silicon Valley, promoting grant applications, and deepening current research relationships.

• Reorganization of the Provost’s Office

  • The Vice Provost of Faculty Success was created to help in aligning practices with Research and Innovation, the RTP process, and providing professional development training. One initiative launched was mandated training for all faculty on search and RTP committees on DEI issues (e.g., biases in hiring, microaggressions, etc). Additionally, efforts to support faculty to ensure promotions have been on-going.

• Developing Teacher-Scholars

  • On-going discussions in Academic Affairs are underway about how to develop, articulate, and promote the institutionally-inspired teacher-scholar model. A next step will be to develop departmental RTP guidelines aligned with this model and to utilize external review more robustly.

• Faculty Mentoring

  • As a part of promoting the development of teacher-scholars, the Office of the Provost, in collaboration with the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, is currently collecting information on current mentoring and faculty support practices. This collection is focusing on faculty experiences, particularly of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) faculty.

• RSCA Fund Development

  • The Division of Research and Innovation has launched several trainings in order to promote faculty applying for grants. This includes a university grants academy. Additionally, new staff are available to help faculty prepare funding proposals. These efforts have led to a year-over-year 16% growth in grant proposals, and 120% growth in dollars applied for. These changes occurred during the pandemic period.

    Additionally, SJSU has created internal funding opportunities to promote faculty RSCA activities. These include seed grants for non-RSCA active faculty, level-up grants to help grow RSCA activity, and student RSCA funds.

• Scholarship of Engagement

  • The Professional Standards Policy Committee in the Academic Senate is currently engaged in conversation about how to recognize faculty contributions through scholarship of engagement.

    The College of Humanities & the Arts, through its Artistic Excellence Programming Grants, offers faculty an opportunity to create community-engaged, student involvement that relies on faculty expertise and scholarship.

• Faculty Expertise

  • Efforts to better highlight faculty expertise externally (e.g., media interviews) include compiling a list of all faculty experts, research expertise, and research centers and developing the Public Voices Fellows Program.

    The Public Voices program is run by the Office of the Provost and the Center for Faculty Development in collaboration with Strategic Communications and Marketing. The goal of the Public Voices program is to increase the voice of faculty in the world. It helps faculty translate their scholarship into public action.

    Additionally, in partnership with Strategic Communications and Marketing, faculty webpages will be created or modified to ensure completeness, professionalism, and standardization.

• Creating a Culture of RSCA

  • In order to create a culture that promotes research, scholarship, and creative activity, efforts to better recognize accomplishments are underway. The Provost’s Office is currently collecting award opportunities to share with faculty, as well as sharing when faculty receive awards. The College of Graduate Studies, in parallel, is developing methods to better recognize and highlight graduate student research and accomplishments.

    In partnership with Strategic Communications and Marketing, press releases on faculty publications will be created and disseminated. The Division on Research and Innovation will continue to grow the annual Celebration of Research. The Spring 2021 Celebration of Research saw an increase in attendance (400+) despite being virtual. The event received positive feedback about creating a sense of connection and appreciation for research.

• ORCID

  • SJSU has promoted the adoption of the Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID) among researchers at SJSU (undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, and staff). This ID is a free, persistent identifier for individuals to use as they engage in research, scholarship, and innovation activities. This helps SJSU researchers promote their scholarship to the world. The next step is to obtain a paid institutional membership that will help with institutional promotion of SJSU research enterprise through ORCID data.

• Digital Humanities Center

  • The new Digital Humanities Center highlights collaborative, interdisciplinary scholarship and research projects by SJSU faculty across campus.

Desired Outcome 2: Engage students at all levels through faculty-mentored research, scholarship or creative activities.

• Undergraduate Research Program

  • With funding from the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, in Fall 2021 the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) was launched. The UROP program aims to transform the culture of student exploration and faculty mentorship at SJSU. By cultivating research partnerships between SJSU undergraduate students, primarily first/second year and incoming transfer students, with SJSU faculty and community organizations, UROP aspires to positively impact retention, graduation, and post-graduation success. UROP is committed to creating opportunities for all populations, creating an inclusive environment where all students’ voices can be expressed and heard, and students’ culture can be expressed through inquisition, creativity, and critical thinking.

• Student Opportunities

  • The Division of Research and Innovation is collaborating with the colleges to promote and support their initiatives, which include but are not limited to:

    Silicon Valley Innovation Challenge - Students pitch their business ideas and present posters to alumni judges. Approximately, 40 to 50 cross-disciplinary student teams participate in this innovative business idea competition every Fall.

    Silicon Valley Business Plan Competition - Teams of cross-disciplinary student business teams compete for seed funding of up to $10,000 for the first place team for their business venture.

    Rapid Paseo - Led by the College of Humanities and the Arts, the Rapid Paseo Prototyping event challenges multidisciplinary groups of undergraduates to collaborate and innovate in order to address social and environmental challenges in the city of San José.

    Scholars Program - Senior Design Project - Housed in the College of Engineering, this program provides students the opportunity to address social and environmental challenges utilizing their knowledge and innovation abilities.

    Biomedical Device Conference - This student run conference provides the opportunity for students to connect with industry leaders and researchers.

    Silicon Valley Leadership Symposium - The College of Engineering holds several symposiums each academic year. They bring industry executives and leaders to SJSU, and provide opportunities for SJSU students and faculty to network and provide space for potential collaborations.

    SVCE Speaker Series - The Silicon Valley Center for Entrepreneurship in the Lucas College and Graduate School of Business hosts several fireside chats for students to interact with entrepreneurs (e.g., alumni and friends of SJSU).

    Engineering Projects in Community Service - This year-long College of Engineering senior design project pairs multidisciplinary engineering student teams with a community partner in need of an engineering solution. For example, one project developed an underwater drone that utilizes image recognition and machine learning to tally fish populations in a vulnerable creek. The team received in-kind support and mentorship from IBM and Nvidia.

• H&A in Action Sponsors

  • H&A in Action sponsors more than 500 intellectual, cultural, and artistic events, performances, and exhibits annually (see Events). The goal is to involve students with actively contested questions, empirical observation, cutting-edge technologies, and the sense of excitement that comes from working to answer important questions.

Desired Outcome 3: Excel in the engagement of people from underrepresented populations as thought leaders in scholarly activity.

• Evaluation of the RTP Process

  • The Academic Senate, BIPOC faculty, and deans have been dialoguing on how to develop a RSCA assessment criteria that accounts for the potential challenges of recruitment and participation of underrepresented populations. For instance, how can the criteria acknowledge and value all types of publications (with appropriate ratings): peer- reviewed journals, conference proceedings, editorials, etc.; how to define and qualify service credits (e.g., op-ed); and, the relative weights RSCA, teaching, and service.

Desired Outcome 4: Foster cross-disciplinary collaborations that capitalize on the university’s signature strengths.

• RSCA in 5 Talks (formerly Tapas Talks)

  • This event involves short presentations by faculty designed to excite others about their research, foster discussion, and find collaborators. Research & Innovation, jointly with Corporate and Foundation Relations, are coordinating these talks to include faculty from all colleges on various themes.

• Hiring Themes

  • To further foster cross-disciplinary collaborations, future faculty hires will consider hiring faculty across departments that build up existing research strengths. For instance, to support SJSU’s strength in wildfire science, new faculty were hired not just in Meteorology and Climate Science, but also in Biology, Engineering, and Environmental Science. These new faculty have now created the Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center which is the nation’s largest academic wildfire research center. These hiring themes also help build community and belonging organically across colleges.

• The New Digital Humanities Center

  • The new Digital Humanities Center, a collaboration between the College of Humanities and the Arts and the Martin Luther King Jr. Library, bring together the values of the humanities and digital methods from fields such as software design, gaming, and mapping, leading to the implementation of digital humanities values: openness, experimentation, collaboration, connectedness, and diversity.

Desired Outcome 5: Exemplify an ethic of service to San José State and the broader community that brings distinction to the university.